The End
by samandfreddie38
Summary: Maybe 'end' is another word for beginning, because second chances are not only given the second time. Sam&Freddie one-shot.


_Centered and Italicized: Song Lyrics_

Normal: Story

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**PLEASE READ: So this took me a while to get done, but it was worth it. I tried something new: NOT in first person! **_**The song is "The End" by LIGHTS and Silverstein**_** (it's SOO good…). If you listen to it, you might understand the story a little more. **

**Try to pay attention to the POV changes. I do not own iCarly. R&R!**

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That smooth, tan skin that caressed the flesh on her cheeks. That flush that crept into them on rare occasions, only certain times he was around.

The few and scattered freckles around her nose. They were easily missed by careless observers, but those who noticed that they sprinkled her face with life were the fortunate ones. Like him.

The way white chewed at pink when she was deep in thought, the way pink moved when sound came from her mouth, the way white was the dominant feature of her face when she smiled.

And those icy sapphire orbs with hints of jade and amethyst. They reminded him of the wide blue expanse of sky over his head, beckoning to him, filling his days with mirth and serenity. Turquoise may transform into grey or black, but the return to the original hue is inevitable. Her eyes were more than two circles with black in the centre. They were jewels; his jewels.

_The first time we met_

_Your face became etched in my mind_

His brain could not erase the inexpungible existence of the blonde locks that embraced that face he craved. Their luster was visible in both the blaze and the gloom. Just like the jewels, their essence was inescapable; necessary for life. The gold strands made the glowing ball of fire in the blue expanse look like dust. That shimmering sphere made life possible, and so did she.

_You were the sun_

_I was the one who worshipped you_

But then again, as a young child reaches for a butterfly, it flutters away out of his grasp. It lands on another flower, deep in bloom; the child follows and stretches his fingers in its direction, finally giving up after repeating the process over and over. The creature realizes the game is over, but wants to keep playing. It lands on the child's nose, taunting him. The child stares cross-eyed at the beautiful delicacy; tries to touch it again. It glides away, out of reach. The game begins again.

She used him. A game. An amusement. A distraction. An escape. A refuge. That's all he was to her.

But he still loved her.

_My hands were your guns_

_Your eyes were my muse_

And he noticed it. He wasn't one to be ignorant.

It was always stop, go, and pause. She was in control. The traffic light on her forehead blinked at him, manipulating his every move, forcing boundaries on each one of his actions. Red. Green. Yellow, red...green! Red. Red, red…

Red.

It would be anticipated but completely unexpected at the same time. You see the green hue, hoping you will make it in time before yellow appears. Yellow warns you; in a moment red flashes, before you're ready. You want to keep going, but you can't. Or you'll die, to a degree.

And that's how it was. Stop. Go-wait, stop.

There was hardly any green. She never let him in. Never let him protect her. Let herself trust him. Herself love him.

But she wasn't the only one with problems. He saw her as beautiful beyond belief, but naïve. His paternal figure was absent too, didn't she ever notice that? She never wondered. She never asked. She never seemed to care.

And it hurt too much to think about anyhow. But why didn't she show any concern? He then knew that she wouldn't be able to understand anyway. She didn't have a grey slab of stone glaring at her from the hard ground, a biting wind searing away at her cheeks, shouting silent screams of blame and imposed guilt. She never would. Not like he did.

But he still loved her.

_And I knew you could never love me_

_I had so much sorrow inside you could never reach_

_But can I still keep a place in your heart?_

She allowed herself to fall. Something she has never done before. It was petrifying. She was paralyzed. All she could do was slip into the trap she had made for herself.

She tried to trust. She tried to love. It all happened so quickly, so suddenly, that she didn't know what to feel. He swore he would be there, to grab her when she plunged to her ultimate doom, to rescue her from her inner insanity, to protect her from impending and menacing fate.

But he didn't.

_You broke my heart_

_You promised me the moon and stars_

_I fell for your dreams_

_I fell for your lies_

Second chances are underrated, she thought. Use them, give them. She kept giving, giving, giving. There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving. Lies, _lies!_ Her mind shrieked. He gave her life, but reduced her to nothing. She couldn't fall deeper and take that chance. She just couldn't. She had already fallen too hard, too fast, too much; before they decided to test the experiment they called love, even before she met him.

_There was no other way_

_You know I tried_

And falling, spiraling into the depths of the abyss of obscurity, wouldn't make him change. It would only make her change. So he would never understand. The loss that comes with abandonment. That guilt. Those mixed emotions that caused a rupture in her soul. She still feels the vibrations of the slamming door, of her mother's shrieks, of her own sobs as he left them, left their lives, left her life.

She couldn't let another man in her life like she did. All they did was leave you. She learned her lesson, and look - he left, just like her father did. She couldn't feel that deep of a pain again, because she knew he wouldn't understand.

But she still feels something. And as she leans on her elbows, relieving some of the weight off her feet, her bones grind against the concrete rail of the bridge looking over her surroundings.

_And I knew you could never love me_

_I had so much sorrow inside you could never reach_

_But can I still keep a place in your heart?_

It was fascinating for him to see her in silent pain and masked suffering. That vulnerable side of her he never got to see was revealed to him in sharp bursts, amazing him with its complexity and riveting characteristics. He didn't want to understand. He didn't want her to heal. He thirsted for the drama, coveted the eccentricities it added to his life.

Maybe she knew why he didn't make any attempts to fulfill his promises. Maybe she didn't, but she was smart. She probably figured it out.

It was sick. He knew it was. And deep inside, he knew it was something more than just making his life more interesting.

_There is something I want you to know_

_I think you know exactly what it is_

_I didn't want to save you_

_I didn't want to save you_

And standing on the flat roof of that old building where he met her, where he once lived, where his mother once drove him completely insane, he realized it. That cruel, twisted, and perverted state of mind called reverse revenge. It drove him to enjoy watching her suffer alone, like she did to him all those years ago. He had his period of pain caused by her. It was her turn.

_I set our house on fire to watch it burn_

He tried to justify it. But no matter how he connects the racing thoughts in his mind, they don't fit. The equations he creates never make sense. And the thought of losing her over his own selfish needs almost throws him over the edge. Literally.

And now he knows he'll never get her back. He was too young. Too naïve. Maybe it's true when they say that youth equals ignorance.

The burden of letting her go is too heavy to carry on his shoulders. So he doesn't carry it. And he silently suffers, like she did when she was with him. The cycle had begun again.

_But I couldn't just leave you_

She was a drug. He knew she wasn't something he should get involved with. But the idea was too tempting, he had to try it. And the first time, it hurts. You get burned. But you need another dose. He needed another dose of her, each one driving him more insane. You can't get enough until it's too late, and when that drug is taken away from you, that stage of withdrawal lasts for the rest of your life. All you want is that drug, all he wanted was her.

Even though he knew she would never let herself become addicted to him. It was too risky. The irony echoed in his skull. The calm and sensible one takes the risk, the careless and rash one doesn't. But he let himself become addicted, hoping that his drug would somehow need him the way he needed it, even though he figured it was impossible.

_And I knew you could never love me_

_I had so much sorrow inside you could never reach_

_But I'll ask you this:_

_Will you still miss me?_

And now, all these years later, she stands here, looking at the busy street a hundred feet below, elbows still chafing on the concrete rail, thinking over everything that happened. Youth was a terrifying thing. It led her to a tragic fate. She lost everything, just because it was too soon to consider something as serious and life-altering as love.

Love. The word rolled around in her tongue. Some years ago, it would have tied it in unbreakable knots. Now, she matured. She knew what it was. She knew how to deal with it.

If only second chances applied to long time frames.

_I'll still miss you…_

Looking at the Seattle traffic hundreds of feet below, he wonders if she still thinks about him the way he thinks about her. Sure, maybe five calendar years had come and gone, but she would never leave his mind. If she didn't love him then, does she love him now? Does she still think about what happened all that time ago? Before they went their separate ways? Before their catastrophic downfall?

_Do you love me?_

Her heart throbbed, physically hurting her chest. Gripping the rail tightly with her now white hands, she took a shaky breath. If only time could stop, rewind, and play from where she messed up, so she could start all over again. Because there were things she needed to stop, to fix, to redo. To say.

_Yes, I love you…_

A roaring noise permeates his eardrums and his face jerks up toward the deep blue sky. His chest feels like it's splitting into two as he sees a plane invading that pure expanse of color that he associates with her eyes of jewels. Get out, _get out!_

And it makes him realize: he has no power over that. Now it seems as though plane after plane follows the first, creating an enormous mass of noise and fuel pollution in their wake. And that pure blue is contaminated. No, it is utterly ruined. And he makes that connection: he has lost her. Forever. And he can't take that.

He is inches from the edge of the flat roof. He takes another hesitant look towards the drop. He is mesmerized by the cars' miniscule size and the moving dots that are people. He feels his weight pitch forward, then catches himself and leans back again, heart pounding. Then he imagines what it would be like to just fall, fall…fall….

All the way to the end. That feeling of releasing everything built up inside as the wind rushes past your ears, making a beastlike roar. But that roar doesn't affect your nerves, because it'll all be over in a matter of a few seconds. And her face flashing in front of his eyes as the sidewalk races under him. The last thing he sees; his only reason for living.

_Planes fill the sky_

_We'll both die tonight_

_We'll both die tonight_

But as he considers this option, he knows death is too good for him. He doesn't deserve the bittersweet bliss that results from it. And who is he to end his own life? He is nothing; he shouldn't have the say in this type of decision. He takes a few steps backwards, tilting his head back to look at her eyes in the sky. The plane has disappeared. He feels his heart reach for the sky, trying to reach the one he loves, but that butterfly flutters away.

The sun beats its rays down on his face, shoving him away from the sky, telling him that it isn't time. He can't fall into the hands of Death. He may not be too young for love now, but he's too young for death.

_Hands from the sky_

_Swat us away like flies_

_As we follow the light_

She stares at the street under her feet and the rail that makes a boundary separating the two. She wonders if she should cross that boundary. To cross into Death's territory, to test those waters, because she has lost everything she ever wanted and ever needed and isn't getting it back.

She swings her legs over the edge and sits on the rail, entire body trembling and barely balancing. And a moment before she lets herself go, she realizes: once you cross into Death's territory, there's no turning back. There's no key back to the gate of life. She feels herself fall forward, her heart leaps in her throat-she frantically grasps the rail to pull herself back over.

_Planes fill the sky_

_We'll both die tonight_

_We'll both die tonight_

She can't take the easy way out. She made the mistake of trying to force love in her life when she wasn't ready. She now needs to face the consequences of her actions. She does not cringe at the thought of suffering, because she has suffered for the majority of her life.

_Hands from the sky_

_Swat us away like flies_

_As we follow the light_

He takes the elevator down to the main lobby. He walks out of the apartment complex, down the Seattle street, still thinking about her. What they had between them was a war. It still was a war. _I have lost. _

It was him against her the entire time, and he had lost. He lost the war, he lost her, he lost everything. It was him against her for their entire lives; why would anything change that?

_This union: a battle fought and lost_

She needed him to escape the problems of her life, to avoid the obstacles that came her way. To have him let the bullets puncture his body while she dodged them. To let him take her fall.

He needed her to make his life have purpose, not because he loved her for her. His life was too boring without her, so he demanded her love to keep as his own, not realizing how wrong that was. He sucked the life out of her. He was too young to understand what love was.

They were two reactants of an equation that was bound to create products of failure. Reflecting back on what sparked this failed relationship made them both realize: they formed a union for the wrong reasons. Of course it would never succeed. And now, unless by some unbelievable miracle, they could never see the potential of what they could be.

_This union was not about the cause_

_This union was never about love…_

He walks down the sidewalk, coming up to a bridge. The sky and the mystical gold ball hanging in its depths flood his vision. He's confused because he knows he's not looking up. Intense flashes of adrenalin surge through his veins as he sees that the blue expanse is her sapphire eyes and the gold sphere is blonde waves of hair.

"_Sam?"_

Her figure whirls around, and brown collides with blue as eye contact is made. His are dirt, hers are water. Together they form mud. The disgusting and revolting mixture that everyone avoids. He tried to convince himself that they weren't supposed to be together, they couldn't be together. But now as he loses himself in the orbs already lost in his, he realizes that earth and water form _life._ They are the basis for growth, for vitality; the nutrients necessary for the very essence of being.

She says his name, and his heart explodes. He lets a smile creep up onto his face, and her sapphire orbs sparkle when a hesitant but hopeful one creates dimples on hers.

There is no other one but her. He would not lose her again. He _could_ not lose her again. Because together they are so much more than anyone would have ever imagined, much more than either of them ever imagined.

Maybe they aren't in a war against each other. Maybe they are on the same side, fighting against a greater force; a higher authority that struggles to tear them apart. Maybe they can't identify that force yet. But together, they can accomplish anything: even overpowering that supernatural force.

This wasn't the end of them, like they originally thought five years ago. Sometimes 'end' is just another word for a new beginning.

And their union of the past was a battle, not a war. He lost that battle. But he will _not_ lose the war. He will make sure of it.

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**So…whadya think? Note: If you think I spelled certain words wrong or had a lot of sentence fragments, I did it on purpose. It was to fit the style of the story better. **

**Also, I recommend reading the story twice so you get more out of it and/or understand the significance of certain symbols and metaphors. Haha, I sound like a poetry nerd xD**

**And what's your favorite quote?**


End file.
